Exercise 2:​ Multi-Dimensional Thinking

Brief

This exercise should take you a couple of hours to complete. As with Assignment One ‘Flow & Play’, begin with a blank sheet of A2 paper. Start by making random dots across the paper with the point of a pen or pencil, as if you are creating an elaborate dot-to-dot picture. Once you have filled the page with a couple of hundred dots, begin to connect them to make shapes and forms like squares, triangles and rectangles. As you begin to fill the page, think of how to connect these shapes to each other. Start to think three-dimensionally and in round and non-linear shapes, as if you are designing a landscape, or a city or park. Slowly start to think visually’ perhaps a cluster of dots resemble a tree, or a building, or a person. From your map of points, try to create the territory within that map.

Keywords from the brief

• Couple of hours to complete.
• A2 paper.
• Start by making random dots across the paper
• Begin to connect them to make shapes and forms like squares, triangles and rectangles.
• Think visually’ perhaps a cluster of dots resemble a tree, or a building, or a person.
• Try to create the territory within that map.

I started by making dots with a black fine liner pen, on an A2 piece of paper as directed. When the paper had over two hundred dots, I sat back and looked at it. I was initially a little lost and believed that I could only draw squares and triangles. Yet, after connecting a few of the dots, I noticed the beginnings of an image, so I kept on with the visual form emerging. It shocked me to see how much my drawing matched Charlie, my late dog. I kept adding forms to the drawing that would fit the narrative, such as a ball, trees, houses, and grass.

Below is the finished drawing.

After I scanned it into Adobe Photoshop and added basic colouring to see what it would look like.

This exercise has taken me by surprise and made me wander how and why I drew my dog that passed away last year.

I now recognise that this is yet another excellent activity to perform, perhaps when I am lacking project ideas.